nomenclature of a package containing tidy.exe

[Now featuring a laborious but less misleading title!]

On renaming, Max Moritz Sievers:

> Then I have to change every script in which tidy occurs.

Well, first I had the Windows rather than the Linux binary in mind. But
secondly I didn't intend to suggest renaming the binary, but instead
renaming the package (.ZIP file, etc.) in which it was distributed.

(As I reread my message, it does seem a bit unclear; and my title was
very misleading. Sorry about that.)

J. David Bryan (whom I thank for his tolerance of my ignorance):

> Versioning an archive containing the executable would,
> perhaps, be helpful in ensuring that the current version
> was downloaded. . . .

I think so.  Moreover, while I don't think dates are inherently easier
to remember than version numbers -- after all, most of us have been
talking of dates since we were barely out of our prams -- I for one find
it easier to remember that the version I use of Becky is 2.00 whereas
the one I use of Tidy is, um, well. . . .

> However, one advantage to distributing the executable directly,
> instead of encapsulated in an archive, is that it does not 
> require the presence of, e.g., WinZip on the user's Win32 platform.
> The program is ready to run once downloaded.

Very true, but I think everyone who's willing to use a console-mode
program with a plethora of switches -- surely well under 20% of the
world population of Windows-using drones! -- is happy with the .ZIP
format. Moreover, there are free alternatives to WinZIP. (As for me, I'm
equally happy with .gz or any of a host of alternatives.)

-- 
Peter Evans <evans@i.hosei.ac.jp>

Received on Tuesday, 6 March 2001 04:19:01 UTC